Every now and then we like to highlight some special products. Today, it’s the Henry Repeating Arms Co lever action .17 HMR Varmint Express. This rifle means a lot to us since Henry advertises on this site and, without them, this site wouldn’t exist.

If you know anything about Henry lever action rifles, you know that they have the smoothest lever action in the business. And what joy it is to hold and shoot. The .17 HMR is extremely accurate and is probably the best caliber to use for ground squirrels and similar small varmints.

If you don’t have a Henry catalog yet please click on the picture below. It will take to you to the Henry website where you can sign up to get their beautiful catalog. I promise you, you’ll be daydreaming after looking at their catalog. It’s one you’ll leave on your desk or coffee table and pick up frequently.

This is the rifle the range riders of the 1800′s would have loved to have had close at hand for picking off varmints or just plinking at whiskey bottles. But since the .17HMR didn’t hit the market until 2002, it will be up to you to make it a legend.

Our Henry Varmint Express® packs eleven .17HMR rounds in its tubular magazine. It features a 20″ barrel, comes with a checkered American walnut Monte Carlo stock. Like all lever action Henrys, the action is incredibly smooth from the very first shot. It will enable small game and varmint hunters to take full advantage of the .17HMR with regard to velocity, trajectory, wind drift, richochet resistance, quietness and accuracy.

Already considered by many to be the most accurate rimfire cartridge ever produced, the .17HMR incorporates a .17 caliber bullet into a necked-down .22 magnum case. This high-powered combination produces a sizzlin’ muzzle velocity of up to 2,550 feet per second and the laser-flat trajectory makes it lethal for long-range shots on woodchucks, prairie dogs, foxes and other small varmints. Henry’s take on this revolutionary caliber, the Varmint Express, has a 20″ barrel that delivers dead-on accuracy.

Just like all Henry rifles, it’s handcrafted in the United States using only high-grade components such as a checkered American walnut stock, and Williams Fire sights and, of course, it’s outfitted with that legendary, smooth-operating lever action that sets a Henry rifle apart from all the imitators.

This was taken over a two day period where the problem was not solved completely, but certainly addressed… The dead land in the film use to be rows of trees, and the piles of limb and branches in the video are whats left of the trees. The green is the neighboring alfalfa which they are severely threatening…

I finally broke down and spent the day going through dvd’s from last year’s squirrel shooting trips. I didn’t try to do anything artistic with this video, but it does quell the basic need for seeing squirrels getting whacked… I’ll try to get up some more videos in the next week or two, so check back.

All of these squirrels were shot using my Savage 17hmr accutrigger, with Hornady 17gr ballistic tip bullets. On a side note, there’s nothing like having a video camera mounted on your rifle to show you when you jerk the trigger.

Quick little video of a rabbit getting shot by a 17 HMR Sako. the 17HMR is one of the best small game rifles made, and can take a rabbit or squirrel out to 165 yards with just a few inches of drop from zero. The ideal sighting range for a 17 HMR is 85 yards, which puts a 17 grain ballistic tip bullet at plus or minus .75 of an inch between 35 yards and 135 yards. That lets put the cross hairs directly on the rabbit or squirrel, and be off by less than an inch.